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December 16, 2004
TypeKey is a total failure
One of the great things about Movable Type is that you don't have to know all that much to set it up. Sure, the chances of it for some reason assume your archives will go in a given place have about a 90 percent chance of being wrong, but that's easy to fix once you get logged in. Even if you can't handle it by yourself, Six Apart's support forums have some really sharp minds that can get you up and running.
TypeKey is everything that Movable Type is not. It's a simple enough concept: A one-stop shop to get a persistent, semi-verified identity that will let you comment on anyone's weblog. In practice, it's a lot different. It's way more trouble than it's worth.
Here's an obvious example of what makes it confusing:
Questions:
1. Why is the token (ostensibly, your identity) with the list of weblogs you wish to use it on? It seems to me that the token and the list of weblogs shouldn't be included. You can't change the identity, hence it's not a preference. Your preference doesn't really matter, because you get what they give you.
2. What's with the text? I like to think that I'm a reasonably smart guy, but that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Do I put in the full address to Movable Type? Should it just point to my site? It says application, but it's hardly explicit about it. Now, does it go to the actual mt.cgi or just to the directory that contains it?
Suppose you make sense out of all that, and you put in the necessary information. Then suppose something doesn't work. There's no help page available from the TypeKey site. When you try to submit a comment and something's not set up correctly, they let you know with this incredibly informative message:
The site you're trying to comment on has not signed up for this feature. Please inform the site owner.
Seeing as how I'm the site's owner, that's kind of worthless. I don't know what to do about it, and I have no simple place to go to find out.
If I do want support, there's no real FAQ on the TypeKey site. The only thing there is just information about what TypeKey does. If you want support, you have to go to the main TypeKey site and then there's a link to a support form.
Maybe I'm old school, but there's an old adage on the Internet that this brings to mind: RTFM. Unfortunately, since there is no manual (or relevant FAQ), it makes it kind of hard.
Being a spoiled Mac user, reading the manual is something I've begrudgingly learned to force myself to do. When you use a Mac, it's not something you often find yourself needing to do. I know they're Mac fans at Six Apart, and they've done great work to make Movable Type as simple as they can, but they dropped the ball on this. If you can't make intuitive, the least you can do is include a good manual.
I know I could look this up on Google or fill out the support form, but that's not the point. The point is that it's sort of ridiculous that I have to do that at all. When I have the time, I will look for support elsewhere on the Web. But I shouldn't have to.
In the meantime, comments are shut off because I'm getting spammed.
Posted by Chris Coleman at 12:45 PM | Comments (0)
December 14, 2004
Damn clean hippie
I'm working on Danielle's site for her. She had some issues with her redesign, so I decided to go ahead and put together something new for her, which I had been promising for a while.
It's not quite finished, but it is up and running. It's basically a new style on top of this site's layout, but it still looks pretty good. I'm sort of proud of the XHTML and CSS. Hopefully I can get things finished up for her tonight, and then get some work done on Funk 'n' Gumbo's site.
Don't bother straining your eyes looking at that. Just go to Danielle's site.
Posted by Chris Coleman at 12:27 PM | Comments (0)
December 02, 2004
Buy now for the holidays!
So I picked up at hot Nintendo DS today at [name of store deleted] (hot in the sense that everybody wants one, not that it's stolen).
I decided to be a nice guy and share my good fortune with the Internet. That means you can bid on it on eBay. Don't be afraid to give my auction a helping hand.
Check out my auction. Get it while it's hot!
Posted by Chris Coleman at 08:19 PM | Comments (3)
December 01, 2004
Spam, spam, spam!
Colin's got a hecka good article on spam over at The Uber Geeks. So far, I haven't gotten any comment spam here, but this incarnation of the site is still young. I would use TypeKey to keep the spammers away, but it's a huge piece of crap, so that's out. My solution is to sit and wait. I'm sure it'll happen eventually, but I'll worry about it when they start hitting my site.
As for the more traditional form of spam, and I don't mean the canned meat, I don't really get any of that either. My Yahoo! address gets a few every day, but their filter is pretty good and it catches all of it. I still haven't gotten a single e-mail sent to the spam folder on my Gmail account. I got two in my work account just after I started here in September of last year, but that must have been a fluke, because I haven't gotten any since then.
I've been lucky so far. Thank God I'm not this guy.
Posted by Chris Coleman at 03:52 PM | Comments (3)